


I'm too late

by Lordpardonthelesbians



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asthma, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Toni Topaz Needs a Hug, give Toni Topaz a backstory, this is my first ever story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:42:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lordpardonthelesbians/pseuds/Lordpardonthelesbians
Summary: I look down at her still, lifeless body. I was too late.





	1. Lifeless

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this is my very first story so i'm hoping that it won't suck too much. English isn't my first language so I'm sorry for any mistakes.  
> I'm open to any suggestions. Anyways, enjoy!

I’m stuck in this foggy blizzard.  
Where the stormy days blend perfectly with the dark starless nights.  
I take in my surroundings and find my hollow reflection glaring right back at me.  
My brown eyes empty of the light they once beared.  
I no longer see the life that I used to have.  
I am no more than a bottomless dark hole.  
Exposed for all to see.  
The sadness waterfalls haven’t graced my cheeks in such a long time, that I no longer have knowledge of the feeling of a tear spilling down my face.  
I no longer know how to feel and when emotions start to bloom within me, I have no idea how to express them.  
My chest hosts odd sounding beating of my heart.  
The misfunctioning machine that pumps the excess amount of blood directly into my ears.  
The irregular whooshing that echoes through my eardrums every second of every day never fails to render me dizzy.  
I am overwhelmed by the weight of my very own desperation.  
There are days when I wish I could end it all.  
Just stop and drop everything.

 

I look again,  
I see her flaming red hair.  
Her back is facing me.  
I call out to her and she doesn’t move.  
Doesn’t flinch, doesn’t breathe.  
I reach out to her, barely even managing to graze her skin with my fingertips.  
She’s too far.  
Unattainable.  
I can’t reach her.  
I can’t save her.   
I’m too late.

I cry out.  
Dropping to my knees.  
Clutching at my aching chest as I look down at her still, lifeless body with the three-inch handle of a knife protruding from her stomach.  
She’s dead.  
I was too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, i have no idea hoz to edit chapters so if so;eone could help with that...


	2. Wake up, please.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheryl has to step up and help Toni through a rough night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you'll enjouy this chapter. I am always open to constructive criticism.

**Cheryl' s POV**

 

I wake up in my room like I would on any other day. The deep red curtains adorning the windows are drawn and everything is dark and quiet around me. An unexpected shiver runs down my spine. The air is crisp and chilly but that is not the cause. A small whimper of fear just resonated from beside me. It was so quiet that had the room not been as deadly silent as it curently is, it would have gone unnoticed. I turn to my left to find my girlfriend's sleeping face. Her features bear a distressed expression, her mouth is moving on its own accord. She whimpers again, louder this time, and starts babbling incoherently. The only sounds that I can decipher are the no's and the pleases that she utters . I know what's happening, I know that she's having a nightmare but I have absolutely no idea what I should do to help. I watch helplessly as she begins to toss around in the bed. Her head swings wildly from side to sideand her mouth opens in a silent scream.

I call her name softly hoping to bring her back to reality but to no avail.I decide to be more direct this time and lay my palm on the clammy skin of her bicep. I know I probably shouldn't have done that. No, I definitly shouldn't have done that. The moment my hand comes in contact with her bare flesh,she tenses up. I can feel her muscles gradually becoming rigid. A second later, she surges up, flinging her arm in my general direction. Her fist catches me in the nose cause a sickening cracking sound to errupt from the impact on my nasal cavity. My unsteady position couple with the sheer force of the blow throws me off balance. I fall from the comfort of the bed and land harshly on my right wrist. I hear another crack which is quickly accompanied by blinding pain in my wrist. That coupled with the pain from my nose has me disorientated. I am paralysed by it. However, the panic written on my girlfriend's face right now is enough to get me in motion.

I carefully get up, trying not faint from the amount of pain that I find myself in. As I slowly approach her, I start noticing the signs of her impendent panick attack. Her eyes are wide, unfocused and filled with tears that she does not shed. Her lips are parted, her jaw slack and her breaths coming out in ragged, irregular puffs of air. The fingers on her left hand are pressed tight to her sternum, flexing every few seconds as if trying to force the oxygen to her lungs. Her right hand lays limply beside her, the knuckles bloody and bruised. Her entire frame is tense but I can still see the tremors going through her frail body. I have never, in the year and a half that we've known eachother,seen her in such a state of distress and that sight alone breaks my heart. I, once again, ignore how dizzy I've become, wipe my nose with my sleeve to avoid scaring her any further and sit in front of her on the bed. I refrain from reaching out for her, not really wanting a repeat of what happened a few minutes ago. Her breathing, I notice, is erractic. She's not getting enough air and I'm pretty sure that she will end up passing out. I have no idea as to what I should do to help. she's usually the one calming me down from nightmares and such. So I do what she always does.

I hum.

I hum whatever melody comes to my mind. I hum at least three entire songs before she satrts calming down. Her breathing gradually slows slows until only shuddering breaths remain. Her cheeks are puffy and stained with tears but at least she's back with me. 

She looks up, stares into my eyes for a few seconds before launching herself at me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and her legs around my waist. She deposits her face in the crook of my neck. I hold onto her as tightly as I can with a possibly boken wrist and begin rubbing her back. Her body is still shaking but at least her breathing is once again steady. 

She's back now.

She woke up.

I'm really dizzy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it didn't suck as much as I think it did.


	3. Please pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems that I only get inspiration when I'm in class so since it's easter break this chapter will be short.

I feel dizzy.

Like really really lightheaded now. I don't want to slump agaisnt Toni's shoulder and just have her realize that I fainted so I carefully detach her from me. I hide my hide under my shirt to avoid letting her see any of the damage there is to it, grab my phone from the nightstand and dial 911. She looks at me confusedly so I nod towards her bloody knuckles to at least give her some sort of explanation. She looks down to her hand, studies her broken joints then raises her gaze up to my face.  Her eyes lock on my injured nostrils and I can see the realisation of what exactly happened dawn on her. She hurriedly scoots back and away from me, looking at her hand as if it is foreign to her own body, like it betrayed her, like she wants to cut it off for hurting me. I knew that she would end up blaming herself for that which is precisely why I keep my hand hidden. I finsh up my call for an ambulance, knowing that neither one of us would be fit to drive in the state -both physical and emotional- that we're in, and toss the phone on the other side of the bed.

Toni is cowering against the headboard, huddling with her knees up to her chest, holding onto them as tightly as she possibly can while balancing slightly back and forth. Her breathing has once again become erractic and I can now hear, with every gasping breath that she takes, a high-pitched hissing sound that can only indicate one thing. Of course, an already shitty situation can become even worse. The worst panic attack that she has ever had is now turning into an asthma attack and it is just our luck that she lost her only inhaler last week. Of fucking course. I can only imagine what she's going through right now. How her chest must be painfully constricting, how itchy the inside of her throat must feel, how utterly terrified she must be, being able to feel herself suffocating. Normally, to calm her from an asthma attack I would pick her up, craddle her body against mine while walking around for a few minutes (she is very  _very_ light) and wait for it to pass but right now that would just make everything worse. There is nothing that I can do without scaring her further so I resign to watching helplessly as she struggles to breathe. I know that eventually it will all get a little too much and hopefully she'll pass out soon. I just wish that the paramedics won't take too long to come after that. Seeing her like this is breaking my already broken heart, her eyes hold so much despair, so much fright. I know that she feels as if she is dying right then and there, that she can feel her body shutting down, refusing to obey even the simplest of demands, refusing to take air in. The sight is horrendous and the only thought going through my mind at the moment is  _Please pass out. Please pass out._

_Please pass out._

I have to go downstairs to open the door for the paramedics, I know I have to, but I am entirely too scared to leav her alone in the state that she's in. Because her attack is now so bad that she's fighting agianst her self as if someone was choking her. And with Toni that desperate, who knows what she'd do to make the pain stop? The last time one of her attacks was this bad, I found her violently banging her head on the wall, screaming, crying and bleeding all over it. I don't want to leave her now incase she tries to hurt herself again, incase it's the only order her body complies to. Luckily, she goes limp. Her hands fall to her side, her head slumps forward and she stops fighting. Her brething is still ragged and I can still hear the whistling sound every time she exhales so I maneuver her, as best as I can with a broken wrist, into the recovery position. She's not okay but at least she's unconcious so she doesn't know that.

I am still really dizzy but I once again ignore that fact in favor of going down the stairs. I walk to the front door slowly, disoriented. Everything around me is blurry, there are black spots clouding my vision. I feel hot, cold and clammy at the same time, my head is pounding, my wrist is too, so basically I feel like crap. It isn't until I have trouble unlocking the door that I notice that my entire body is trembling. After a couple seconds of trying, I finally manage to turn the key in the lock, stepping away from the door to leave way for the medics when they'll get here, I look around me, trying to gather my bearings but failing miserably because of how distorted everything is. 

I blink.

Once.

Twice.

By the third time, my eyes do not reopen and my body falls to the ground.

I was, after all, still really dizzy. 


	4. Three weeks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheryl is not used to being patient but she has tolearn that she can't fix everything.

It's been three weeks. Three weeks of Toni asleep in that hospital bed with a tube lodged in her throat. Three weeks of me sitting in that slightly _(immensely)_ uncomfortable chair and only leaving her side once every day. Three weeks of learning to do everything with my left hand only. Three weeks of me constantly being hungry because Toni isn’t here to remind me to feed myself. Three weeks of constant worry. Three weeks of living without the love of my life. So yeah, the worst three weeks that I’ve ever had to live through.

 

In those three weeks, all our friends _(Cher they’re our friends you can’t keep calling them the sad breakfast club. And stop calling Sweets and Fangs “Dumb and Dumber” please? For me?)_  came to visit T.T, to show their support and to bring me my homework. I’m grateful that I get to speak to people for at least thirty minutes on the daily, otherwise I think I might just go crazy… who am I even fooling? With the love of my life in that bed, I’m already losing my mind. My eyes are now a constant shade of red, puffy and glossy from the amount of crying that I’ve been doing lately. I haven’t bothered with washing or combing my hair, so it now sits as an untamed mess at the top of my head. My clothes are mismatched, baggy and they probably _(definitely)_ belong to Toni. I’ve lost so much weight that _Toni Topaz’_ clothes are too large for me. My cheekbones are now more prominent than they’ve ever been, and my hipbones are practically piercing the leggings that I’m wearing. I haven’t slept a lot either so there are ginormous bags under my eyes. My movements are slow and sluggish, and I cannot, for the life of me, concentrate on my homework. I am worried, scared, anxious, concerned, preoccupied, and terrified at all times. There is not a second that goes by where I’m not feeling one of these emotions. This whole situation is really taking its toll on me. Both emotionally and physically.

 

She should have woken up by now. She shouldn’t have been in a coma in the first place. The doctors said, when we first came in, that she would wake up when the next morning came. Well the next morning came. And it went. But still, Toni did not rise. In fact, she went into cardiac arrest for seemingly no reason and had to be intubated. Nobody knows what caused this coma. All her test results had come back clear, there was no apparent brain damage and her bodily functions, apart from respiratory, were all perfect. There is seemingly no reason for this coma, and I’m worried it means that she might never wake up.

 

I’m sitting on the chair next to her bed _(Chocking, I know)_ reading _(trying very, **very** hard to read)_ Anna Karenina. For at least the 15th time now, I completely give up on that task _(seriously, who has ever finished that book on the first try?)_. I opt, instead to stare at Toni’s somewhat peaceful features. I notice the way the light shines down on her, bathing her in a soft glow, making the unusual paleness of her face even more prominent. Had I not been staring so intently at her face; I would have noticed the way her forefinger moved ever so slightly. I would have noticed when her hand clenched or the way her toes started wiggling under the covers. I would have noticed all of that. What I do notice, however, _(all thanks to the creepy, stalker-like staring but, you know)_ is the way her eyes begin to move beneath her eyelids, the way her brows furrow, the way her lips start moving around the tube. I do notice the heart monitor beeping erratically; I notice the flock of nurses and doctors that barge into the room screaming about fluids and code blues. I don’t notice the hand that is placed on my arm until said hand pulls me out of the room. I don’t notice the hand until I’m standing in the waiting room.

 

I spend half an hour in the waiting room, alternating between sitting anxiously and pacing the floor. I wait. And I wait.

 

And. I. Wait.

 

I wait for something, for someone to come tell me anything. I wait until I am tired of waiting. Just as I’m about to barge in the room, a small blonde doctor _(what was her name again? Corrins? Borrins? Robbins. Doctor Robbins.)_ comes out. She looks me straight in the eyes and says words that, after three weeks could either save me or kill me.

 

“Miss Blossom? We spent the better part of the last half hour reanimating miss Topaz and now she is…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me two months to right a crappy chapter. yay me!! Also i'm sorry for the cliffhanger.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it was good enough.


End file.
